City of Scoundrels

Reasons to be Fearful, Part 3

Better late than never!

10

MAR/16

The night of Caliphate themed festivities on Tumbledown hill has kicked off a bit of a fad in the city. Street vendors hawk painted trinkets and bone idols they claim to be of ancient Sumerian origin, and real antiquities are moving off the shelves faster than they can be stocked. The stories of Lord Stumblebum’s party have been so outlandish, bizarre, and interesting that for the first time in a generation, people of the city are beginning to take a genuine interest in cultures outside their own.

Those who have managed to acquire genuine protective artifacts might find themselves better served than expected. Reports of a number of strange and brutal murders throughout the city are spreading through the fledgling public press, who will print stories on anything that bleeds. Just another aspect of the ongoing gang war? Some psychopathic serial killer? Or something out of this world entirely?

Certainly the city’s security services aren’t doing anything to catch the culprit. The sudden and unexpected disappearance of the Lord Goodheart, the King of Eyes and premier ruler of the underworld has thrown the usual groups of uniformed thugs into internecine chaos as they struggle to agree on a successor. Much of the city is still in disbelief, choosing to trust that the King will shortly return, and unwilling to support anyone else against him. But unless he returns quickly, a full-blown collapse in the precarious structure he built is likely.

And in a rare, happy story of rags to riches, the popular foreigner Oswaldo Fall seems to have come into a significant amount of money recently. Surely the society columns will be clamouring for an interview with this newly-eligible bachelor.